Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!bobal
From: bobal@microsoft.UUCP (Bob Allison)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Pointer examples and 8x
Keywords: Fortran Pointers, Oxymorons
Message-ID: <6174@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 26 Jun 89 16:53:40 GMT
References: <638hallidayd@yvax.byu.edu> <12018@pur-ee.UUCP> <2766@elxsi.UUCP>
Reply-To: bobal@microsoft.UUCP (Bob Allison)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 34

In article <2766@elxsi.UUCP> uunet!elxsi!corbett (Bob Corbett) writes:
>     It is not Fortran code yet.  Whether you think it should or should not
>be, you will soon have a chance to let your opinion be known.  The second
>public review is about to begin.  I urge those who wish to take part in the
>review to get a copy of the draft as soon as it is available.  It took me
>2 1/2 months of hard reading to understand the previous public review copy
>well enough to comment intelligently on it.  I have heard that the next public
>review probably will last only two months.  Remember, comments received
>after the deadline have no official status.  Be sure to mail your comments
>at least a week before the deadline.
>
>						Yours very truly,
>						Bob Corbett
>						uunet!elxsi!corbett
>                                                ucbvax!sun!elxsi!corbett

Well, since I was the one who spread the rumor about the two-month
public review, I should state that in the X3 meeting last week, one of
the issues they discussed and decided on was to have the second Fortran 8x
public review be four months long.  It is now going into the pipe and when
official dates are announced I am sure they will be published in this group.

As an aside to Walt, I still haven't bothered to reply to your comments
about the pointer examples yet because I haven't had the time to sit down
and formulate a good example to demonstrate what I meant by "walking around"
pointers.  The only example I came up with off the top of my head was moderately
artificial and involved using the address of the pointer to indicate when
I have gone full circle in a circular linked list.  Hopefully I will get 
enough free time this week to come up with an example which demonstrates why
I think the 8X pointer proposal will end up falling short for non-trivial
examples.  But keep up the ad hominem attacks: if nothing else, it keeps
my name in print.

Bob Allison